The heritage of Catholicism

As a pretty much non-practising Roman Catholic, but one who won't deny a centuries-old heritage of Catholicism which has imprinted itself in my genes, I read with disappointment the blind and unhelpful attitude of Richard Dawkins towards Pope Benedict XVI (Critics call for arrest of pope on UK visit, 12 April). To describe a global leader as a "leering old villain in a frock", head of "his tinpot fiefdom of the Vatican" betrays a sneering, juvenile attitude that ill becomes a global scientist.

The vitriol displayed towards Benedict XVI provided me with the clearest insight I've yet had into the feelings some Muslims experienced over cartoons that they regarded as derogatory to the prophet Muhammad. As long as people believe in it, there is such a thing as the sacred. A moderate tone would do a lot more good for the world.

Richard Forrest

Blarney, County Cork, Ireland

• The blinkered inward gaze by the Catholic church is just more evidence of a form of feudalism that presumes the special entitlement of a religious hierarchy. The failure to accept social and criminal responsibility in a wider context, beyond the church itself, is part of the problem. The crimes against children perpetrated by priests and nuns (so this is not just about patriarchy) need understanding in that wider global and historical context.

In the interests of all past victims, and to prevent future ones, the wider agenda for justice and understanding would include: the Catholic culture of self-mortification; gender segregation; unloving institutional isolation; celibacy as a Trojan horse for nefarious action; the episodic complicity of the police; and the manipulative demand for blind obedience by a feudal hierarchy.